The recent 2015 report by the United Nations predicted that by 2050, the world population will grow to 9.7 billion, wherein half of them reside in Asia (54.1 percent), an estimated growth of 19.9 percent from 2015. Social changes and economic shifts in Asia, coupled with recent financial crises, pose significant challenges to sustainable development and business practices in Asia and around the globe. While there are urgency on developing, planning and implementing sustainable strategies to enable and ensure productivity and viability of businesses, new opportunities are also opening up, requiring innovative strategies at all levels to ensure productivity of workers and successful business practices.

Business practices that seize new opportunities with innovations pose a great challenge for Asian firms in the 21st century. The potential growth of the region calls for close collaboration between universities, research institutes and government agencies for the advancement of new knowledge on sustainable business practices as well as on required institutional changes. Social changes accompanying the economic growth and the expansion of the financial market raise new concerns that need to be addressed at the same time. With an unprecedented new horizon opening up for the future of Asia, this conference calls for in-depth discussion to identify new sources of opportunities, by exploring new strategies that enable changes, enhance sustainable growth and meet rising challenges facing firms in Asia.